


Half A Roll of Livesavers

by DPPatricks



Category: Starsky & Hutch
Genre: Episode Related, Gen, Memories, Some Humor, long established relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-05
Updated: 2021-03-05
Packaged: 2021-03-18 21:27:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29864307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DPPatricks/pseuds/DPPatricks
Summary: Musings and a conversation between Starsky and Hutch initiated by the title.
Relationships: Ken Hutchinson/David Starsky
Comments: 20
Kudos: 26





	Half A Roll of Livesavers

**Author's Note:**

> The idea for this piece, and the beta read, came from Maria F. Thanks, my friend! The story, itself, demanded a post-SR setting.

I quit typing, disgusted with myself for the mistake I’d just made and not willing to uncap the Whiteout, again, just yet. I couldn’t figure out why I was typing like a two-year-old. I was happy. Starsky was back, and Gunther would soon be in our rear-view mirrors! 

I knew Starsky was aware of the many errors I’d been making and I was grateful when he didn’t voice any snide remarks.

I dug in my jacket pocket for something to distract myself from my current lack of typing ability. Surprisingly, I found a partial roll of Lifesavers. As I popped a red one, an image flashed into my mind and I wondered if Starsky remembered things the same way I did.

“Starsky?”

“Hmm?”

“How many times have you saved my life?”

“What? Where’d _that_ come from?”

“I was just thinking --”

“I keep tellin’ you, Hutch, that kinda thing can stunt your growth.” He showered me with the light from his thousand-watt smile. 

I returned the smile and, stuffing the rest of the roll back in my pocket, drank the last of my coffee. Getting up, I went to the machine on top of the file cabinets. After I’d poured a refill for myself, I glanced over my shoulder, wordlessly asking my partner if he wanted any. He shook his head so I walked back to my place, my hand trailing over his shoulders as I passed, patted Inspector Pig E. Bank on the head, sat, and just looked across at my buddy, my best friend in the whole world. 

I knew Starsky felt my scrutiny but he kept his head down, diligently reading. He had re-qualified, against all odds, but was a week or so away from being cleared, physically, to be back on the streets. Until that time, since I had refused a new partner, we were relegated to desk duty.

I had more than enough to do, of course, making sure we had all our T’s crossed and I’s dotted in the Gunther case. Having come as close as we had to losing our partnership in the worst possible way, we were determined that James Marshall Gunther would spend the rest of his miserable life in prison.

On his side of the tables, Starsky was reading through the entire case file, making absolutely sure Gunther’s coven of lawyers would find nothing to exploit. 

“Whatcha lookin’ at, Hutch?” Starsky didn’t raise his head but his tone held vast amusement. He was clearly as glad to be back at his desk as I was to have him there.

“Still thinking. And you just happen to be in my line of thought.”

He looked up. “Not gonna leave it alone, huh?”

“No. I’m remembering something and wondering if our views are the same.”

“In that case…” He pushed his chair back a bit and raised his feet onto the edge of the desk, crossing his ankles. He didn’t even wince doing it. “How many times have I saved your life?”

“That’s the question.”

“How far back are we talking about?”

“The beginning.”

“In that case… Let’s see… There was that time at the academy that you --”

“Not _that_ far back, Starsk.”

“Oh. Okay. Be specific, then.”

“From the time we hit the streets, after graduation.”

“Well… the first time I remember was that convenience store robbery, when we were both still in uniform. Shots fired, according to Dispatch. Your veteran partner left you hangin’, while he called for backup.”

“And didn’t come in the store until three more squad cars had arrived.”

“As I recall…” Starsky seemed to be replaying the events in his head. “My T.O. and I got there first. He covered the front, with your partner, while I ran around back.”

“Correct. They shouted for the perp to give himself up. Come out with his hands up, he was surrounded, couldn’t escape, etcetera, etcetera.”

“But, apparently, the perp wasn’t listening.”

“He was so strung out, Starsk, he wouldn’t have heard a marching band if it had passed in front of him. He actually fired another shot into the cooler next to where I was standing.”

“I heard that as I came through the back door. When I crept in behind you - didn’t even startle you ‘cause you knew I was there - you motioned me to get down and make my way into the next aisle, while you tried to reason with him.”

“I didn’t do any better than the guys outside.”

“At which point, if I remember right, he fired two more bullets in your direction as I rushed him.”

“If you hadn’t taken him down when you did, Starsk, I firmly believe his next shot would have blown my head off.”

Starsky looked like that had been his impression, too, but he didn’t want to think about it.

“So…” I said. “That was the first time. Second?”

Starsky’s voice dropped to where it was almost inaudible. “Ben Forest.”

“Right. And, since _you_ don’t want to talk about it any more than _I_ do, let’s move along.”

“Hutch, why are we doing this? We’ve got Gunther on the ropes, I’m back on duty - not back where we belong yet - but re-instated. What got you walking down Memory Lane?”

“I had the flash of an image a few minutes ago and started thinking about all the times you’ve saved my life.” I pulled the roll of candy out of my pocket and held it across the tables. 

“Mmmm,” he mmmmed, happily. “Lifesavers.” He took the next one, a lime, and placed it carefully on his tongue before drawing it into his mouth. “Love these. And I’m followin’ your train of thought, now, Hutch.” 

“That’s good.” The diminished roll went back in my pocket. “What about after Forest?”

He emptied his coffee cup, got up and refilled it. By the time he sat down again, he appeared to be resigned to this exercise. “Would that have been Colby?”

“I’m not counting that as one of the times, buddy.” I sipped my cherry-flavored coffee. “He didn’t want to kill _me_. He wanted to kill our witness, and have us blame ourselves for letting him outwit us.” I shook my head. “Let’s skip him.”

“Gladly!” 

For the next few moments, Starsky was silent and I easily read his thoughts. “It’s okay, Starsk. You can say her name.”

“Gillian.” 

He looked at me, and the expression on his face told me there was more going on in his memories than I knew. I’d need to ask him about it, but that would have to be later. At the moment, I didn’t want to get off track. “Yes. If you hadn’t been there for me, I’d never have gotten past her death.”

“Yeah, you would, Hutch. I just helped a little.”

I smiled inside. My partner was always trying to avoid having his positive contributions to dire situations exposed and expressed. I’d let him get away with it, this time. “Go on. What happened next?”

He swallowed a couple of gulps of coffee, as if trying to postpone the inevitable. “Humphries, Roy Slater, and Carlson Canyon.”

“The place had a _name?_ ” I was stunned. “I never knew that!”

“The rescue guys told me, after they’d stabilized you. It was while we were waiting, for what seemed like hours, until the crane showed up.”

“I was conscious enough, before that, to remember you made it difficult for them to work around you.”

“No way I was leavin’ your side, Hutch. As soon as they realized that, they cut the door off so they could get to your left arm. _Then_ , they quit hasslin’ me.”

“My hero.” I swear he blushed. I was tempted to tease him a little more but I really wanted to push ahead. “Okay. You got me out, the doctors fixed my leg, you bought me a replacement car…. Continue, please.”

I could almost see the wheels turning in his head. “Diana?”

“I believe that’s right. She’d have finished me off if you hadn’t shown up when you did.” I drank my cooling coffee, enjoying the addition of cherry. “And then?”

“Uh… Matwick, and his sick asylum?”

I nodded. “That agrees with my reckoning. Next?”

“Hutch --”

“Keep going!”

Starsky thought for a few moments. “Probably that professor’s female accomplice, followed by my saving your ass from Simonetti and Dryden, after Vanessa’s murder.”

I tsk’d, lightly. But then, having hit him with this quiz out of nowhere, it shouldn’t have surprised me that he’d forget something that, to me, was vitally important. “You missed one.”

“I _did?_ ” He visibly wracked his brain and, almost immediately, the proverbial light bulb lit up in his mind. “Callendar!”

I smiled. “Yes, Callendar. But what, specifically, about that whole incident do you remember?”

“I found him… well, no, he gave himself up.”

“Only _after_ you went on live television and begged him.” I held his slightly confused gaze. I was positive, now, that our memories of that experience were very different. “What happened _before_ that?”

More thoughts, then a rueful expression. “I don’t understand what you’re asking.”

“You wrote your name on a window. In lipstick, I think.”

“Sure I did, Hutch, but that wasn’t --”

“It saved my life.”

He was speechless for a moment. “I only did it to let you know I wasn’t quitting. To give you at least a little hope.”

“It did _exactly_ that, Starsk. It told me you’d never stop. It made me _believe_ you’d find Callendar.”

“I was a little pissed when I came back and somebody’d washed it off.”

“Judith told me she hated having maintenance do it, but it had something to do with hospital sanitation rules. It didn’t matter, though. Those six letters were already engraved on my heart.”

“Hutch --”

“Shut up and listen, Starsky! You wrote your name on that window and saved my life! It isn’t in a report anywhere, like the other incidents, but it had the same effect. I continued to live. Because of _you_.”

“Guess I was savin’ mine at the same time, then. ‘Cause I’d never have made it if you’d died.”

I had to smile at that. I’d felt precisely the same when I was looking through another hospital window, almost a year before, staring at my partner, dying of three bullet wounds to the chest. 

We’d saved each other’s lives so often, we didn’t even remember them all. But we were both still here, because of those times. And, God willing, we’d be here a whole lot longer.

“Finish that report you’re reading, Starsk, then let’s grab lunch at Huggy’s.”

He slapped the file closed and stood up. “You got it, partner. All this talk about life savin’ has made me _hungry!_ ”

I rounded the end of the tables and threw my arm around his shoulders. “When has talking about… anything, _not_ made you hungry?”

END


End file.
